Control by Contextual Stimuli in Novel Second-Order Conditional Discriminations

Abstract

Eighteen undergraduates participated in studies designed to examine the factors that produce transfer of contextual functions to novel stimuli in second-order conditional discriminations. In Study 1, participants selected comparison B1 given sample A1 and comparison B2 given sample A2 in a matching-tCi-sample procedure. Contextual stimuli X1 or X2 were introduced next. In the presence of X1 , selections of B 1 given A 1 and selections of B2 given A2 were reinforced; in the presence of X2, selections of B2 given A 1 and selections of B1 given A2 were reinforced (the XAB relations). The participants then learned novel conditional discriminations with stimuli E and F. When we presented the contextual stimuli X1 and X2 with EF, all 3 participants selected the same and opposite comparisons, respectively, as those previously established in EF training. This performance demonstrated the transfer of functions of contextual stimuli to a conditional discrimination with novel stimuli. In Study 2, participants were exposed to the same teaching and testing conditions as in Study 1, except that stimuli X1 and X2 were introduced in a single phase. Of the 4 participants, 2 showed transfer to a novel conditional discrimination. In Study 3 the selections in the XAB task had no differential consequences . Study 4 replicated the conditions of Study 1, with the exception that the AB phase was not taught. Finally, in Study 1' > the EF phase was not taught. All participants failed to demonstrate contextual control of the novel conditional discrimination. These results demonstrated that a complete sequence of conditional-discrimination teaching plays an important role in the acquisition and transfer of contextual control to novel conditional discriminations. These results are relevant to our understanding of instructional control.

Stimuli with identical contextual functions taught independently become functionally equivalent

“…Additionally, the present results replicated those demonstrated by Pérez-González and and Pérez-González and Martínez (2007). The present study was demonstrated with both visual and auditory stimuli.…”

“…Thus, the function of X1 in selecting the same as in the absence of the contextual stimuli (or the same as in the simple conditional discrimination) and the function of X2 in selecting the alternative comparison was demonstrated to transfer to any conditional discrimination with novel stimuli. This study was replicated and extended by Pérez-González, Álvarez, Calleja, and Fernández (2014), Pérez-González and Martínez (2007), and Serna and Pérez-González (2003). An analogous outcome with the X stimuli accomplishing comparison functions was found by Pérez-González (1994) and analyzed and extended by BarnesHolmes, (2000, 2002a, b), Junior and Costa (2003), Junior, Costa, Gonsales, andGolfeto (2001), andPérez-González (2008).…”

“…In fact, the correlations between errors in learning and incorrect responses in the emergence probes (e.g., participant Ana in Experiment 1) suggest that errorless teaching can facilitate emergence. An argument contrary to this assumption is that the errorless procedure was not used to teach the initial contextually controlled conditional discriminations (e.g., XAB) in previous studies (e.g., Pérez-González & Martínez, 2007;. Moreover, it was not used to teach the simple conditional discriminations nor the contextually controlled conditional discriminations in .…”

Stimulus Relations Analysis and the Emergence of Novel Intraverbals

“…Thus it seems that teaching relations with one relevant stimulus may facilitate the learning of the relations with two relevant stimuli. Kennedy and Laitinen found a similar case (1988; see also Pérez-González & Martínez, 2007) when they studied the learning of conditional discriminations. They found that humans learn conditional discriminations easily with contextual stimuli (that make up a total of two antecedent stimuli plus the comparisons) after learning the simple conditional discriminations (that have only one antecedent stimulus plus the comparisons).…”

Common Control by Compound Samples in Conditional Discriminations

“…Examples of research conducted on topics that model some of the complexities of verbal behavior are studies of contextual control (e.g., Bush, Sidman & de Rose, 1989;Lynch & Green, 1991;Markham & Dougher, 1993;Meehan & Fields, 1995;Pérez-González, 1991;Pérez-González & Martínez-Sánchez, 2007;Pérez-González & Serna, 1993a, 1993b, 2003Pérez-González, Spradlin, & Saunders, 2000;Roche & Barnes, 1996Serna, 1991;Serna & Pérez-González, 1994, 2003Wulfert & Hayes, 1988; see theoretical analyses in Sidman, 1986Sidman, , 1994, relations among relations and stimuli (e.g. Carpentier, Smeets, & BarnesHolmes, 2000, 2002a, 2002bJunior & Costa, 2003;Junior, Costa, Gonsales, & Golfeto, 2001;Pérez-González, 1994), studies on relations between relations, or analogical reasoning (Pérez-González, Herszlikowicz, & Williams, 2008;Stewart, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, & Smeets, 2001, 2002, and comparative relations ''more'' and ''less'' (Dymond & Barnes, 1995.…”